"Uh......h Woohoo......"

A low horn sounded over the port of Fuzhou, accompanied by the sound of the horn, a sail warship with a long ramming horn on the bow slowly sailed into the port of Fuzhou, the highest mast of the battleship was blue and white with a crown of flag embroidered in the middle to hunt in the sea breeze.

At first glance, this battleship looks quite imposing, but if you look closely, you can see that the side of this battleship was originally smeared with tung oil, and the hull will turn yellow, and there is black-gray gunpowder smoke everywhere, and even the sails on the mast have several holes.

After seeing this battleship, the Dutch instructors who were originally standing at the stern of the ship and smoking all looked at it, and many of them showed a playful look in their eyes, Neham flicked a cigarette and shook his head: "I haven't seen the Portuguese warship for a few years, and these Portuguese are still so unlucky." ”

Tajik also accosted him: "Mr. Lieutenant, if the Portuguese were not unlucky, they would not have fallen to this point now." I bet with this month's salary that these Portuguese are definitely not here to do business this time. This sentence caused laughter from the crowd around him.

"Okay gentlemen, don't laugh, our current status is not very good, nothing more than a prisoner of war turned mercenary." Neham said lightly.

Several of the Dutchmen around him looked at each other with a look of mockery, but some of them argued: "Lieutenant, at least we are doing well now, we have a salary that matches our rank every month, and we can smoke tobacco with such a mellow taste, at least in my opinion, it is not unacceptable to accept the employment of Ming Guo." ”

"It's a great tobacco, but it's a little bit smaller, and I only send out one pack a week, which is not enough to smoke, so I have to spend extra money to buy it, if only I could send one pack a day."

A second lieutenant shook the half-deflated cigarette case in his hand with a look of regret on his face. It's just that his actions have caused the eyes of the people around him, the cigarettes sold by Jiang Ningjun are not expensive, low-grade cigarettes can be bought for 30 yuan a box, and the mid-range ones are only 50 yuan a pack, with their salary of three taels of silver or even five taels of silver per month, this guy is purely reluctant to spend money.

"Beep beep ......"

While everyone was talking, a shrill whistle sounded on the harbor. Almost as soon as the whistle blew, the Dutchmen who were talking reflexively threw their cigarettes into the sea, and all of them ran towards the deck in the middle of the ship

Less than three minutes after the whistle sounded, all the sailors had already assembled on the deck, and the one hundred and eighty sailors stood in six rows, all of them with their legs naturally apart, their hands naturally drooping against the red line on the outside of their trousers, and their eyes were level, and more than a dozen instructors such as Nerham, who was the instructor on the ship, also stood in a row on the side, and the captain of the battleship standing in front of everyone, a hundred presidents surnamed Wang.

The Bai Zong said with a serious expression at this time: "Brothers, the news has just been sent from above, a Portuguese caravan encountered pirates near Matsu Island, the two sides were broken up after a fight, the only escort warship escaped, and now they officially asked us to send a fleet to support, Liu Junmen decided to personally lead Zhenning, Quinine, Yongning, Qingning, Haining and Wuning six warships to reinforce, now everyone is ready, set off in a quarter of an hour!" ”

"What...... The Portuguese were attacked by pirates near Mazu Island? ”

Everyone was shocked when they heard this, Mazu Island is not far from Fuzhou, about 200 kilometers or so, and it is also a place where the Second Fleet often patrols, in the past half a year, with the continuous enhancement of the strength of the Fujian Navy Division and the continuous increase of the patrol intensity of the Second Fleet in the nearby waters, the traces of pirates nearby are also slowly decreasing, why is it that more than a dozen pirate ships suddenly appeared now, and robbed the Portuguese, this situation is really a bit abnormal?

You must know that pirate robbery is also cost-effective, if you can only rob so little thing each time, but you have to pay the price of ship destruction and death, fools are not willing, after all, someone does the business of killing heads, but no one wants to do the business of losing money.

"Now everyone is in place, set off in half an hour, and target Matsu Island!"

As Wang Baizong's words fell, everyone began to get busy, the sailman began to raise the sails, the rope operator began to untie the rope tied to the dock, the gunner began to enter the combat post to check the condition of the artillery and whether the ammunition reserves were complete, and the sailing officer began to mark the route on the map.

Just when the fleet began to get busy, in the Ningyuan, the flagship of the Second Fleet, Liu Xiang, the deputy admiral of the Fujian Navy Division and the commander of the Second Fleet, was holding a glass, his face showing a look of disgust, and in front of him sat a Portuguese officer wearing a blue military uniform.

The Portuguese officer was not very old, about twenty years old, and the three horizontal bars embroidered on the armband on his shoulders plus a circle showed that this was a captain officer, and the young officer's appearance was not bad, and he was quite good-looking in a blue military uniform, but at the moment he had a bandage on his left arm, and there were several scratches on his face, which looked embarrassed, and his old appearance was not at all.

Liu Xiang finally put down the teacup in his hand and said to the captain in proficient Portuguese: "Captain Maiske, in view of the news you brought and in line with the benevolent intention of my Emperor Ming, Admiral Ben accepted your request and personally led the warship to Matsu Island to search for and rescue your scattered merchant ships. ”

Hearing this, Captain Maisk couldn't help but be overjoyed. A few days ago, he was leading a Portuguese warship to escort three armed merchant ships full of goods from the South Seas to Xiamen, but was attacked by pirates near Matsu Island, although he let the merchant ships withdraw first, he was desperately blocking with the warships, but because there were too many pirate ships, he could only withdraw while fighting, and finally lost contact with the three merchant ships, and finally had to drive the scarred warship to Fuzhou to meet Liu Xiang and ask her for help.

Originally, Liu Xiang didn't intend to pay attention to this kind of bullshit, the Portuguese were attacked by pirates, and she didn't have that kind of obligation to help, but Captain Maiske mentioned that there was an envoy sent by the Portuguese Governor in Macau, Steve, on a merchant ship, and he also carried the mission entrusted by Governor Steve, and Liu Xiang had to reluctantly agree to send troops to rescue after thinking about it again.